The other night my mum asked me about my childhood best friend, she used to be my comfort person, we met on the first day of kindergarten, although we weren’t technically “friends” until junior high school.
I have always had a hard time making friends because I always have this wall, I love having my guard up but friendship is a two-way relationship, you can’t ask someone to trust you until you’re sure you can trust them, and maybe that is the reason why I don’t have that many friends from my school/college time. Trusting another being with your secrets is a really tough thing to do, especially when you’ve had bad experiences.
It took me forever to find my comfort person, I met her randomly, I wasn’t looking for a “friend” and I am pretty sure she wasn’t either. It started with “Oh do you wanna buddy read a book with me?” and now she is the first person I go to when I am sad or happy. I don’t know if I have a “romantic” soulmate in my fate but I know for a fact that I have a platonic soulmate. And I kid you not but platonic soulmates are so underrated!
Imagine knowing someone better than they know themselves!
Imagine being someone’s comfort person, their ride-or-die!
Imagine being the first person they share all good and bad things with!
I’ll be honest, I never thought I was worthy of “friendship” and I don’t mean that in an “oh I’m miserable and such a bad person” way but in an “I am a very guarded and closed-off person” way.
Imagine having 14 people you call friends but the moment you pass out of school, the communication just ends. So, naturally, when I got into college, I wasn’t looking for friends, I was keeping my head down, talking and mingling with people, but I never pictured hanging out with them after we graduated. And COVID did come to my rescue, with classes being online, I had no reason to make “friends” and to my surprise, I still ended up with 2 great friends that I can text whenever I am feeling down.
I used to think that childhood friends were your endgame and that you were meant to grow old with them, that you could never grow apart from them because aren’t these the same bunch of people who chose you when you were all 5? I am 23 years old now and I am only friends with 2 of my childhood friends, the rest 15, I don’t have a clue about what they’re doing. I mean, I know what degrees they’re getting and which company they work at (thanks to social media), but do I know what they’re DOING? Definitely not.
But this also doesn’t mean that they weren’t my people back in the day. They are still the people I have spent the majority of my life with. and sometimes I look back and wonder what happened, why aren’t we close now (well okay I do know why we’re not close now, I’ve had enough time to reflect). And when I said, “Imagine having 14 people you call friends but the moment you pass out of school, the communication just ends.” I meant that it ended from both sides. Neither did I contact them to check on them nor did they call to see how I was doing.
This is not to say that I wish I never met them in the first place because I am a firm believer that everyone, EVERY SINGLE LIVING SOUL, comes into your life for a reason, either you’re their lesson or they’re yours.
And here’s the harsh truth, as you grow up, you WILL outgrow people. People you once planned your retirement with, you might just one day stop talking and no one will ever know what happened, just the fact that you’re no longer a part of each other’s life. But just because there’s a chance you might outgrow your people, doesn’t mean you have to guard your heart. You are a mosaic of everyone you have met, the person you are right now is a blend of everyone you have met up to this point.
My childhood best friend taught me how to make filter coffee and I still make it the same way. A college friend taught me some really cool Excel shortcuts and sometimes when I am using the shortcuts, I think about him. My brother’s ex-girlfriend taught me how to clip Scooby’s nails properly and whenever I do a bad job at clipping his nails, I mentally make a note to give my full attention to people when they’re teaching me something. My best friend has this weird habit of immediately deleting call logs of anyone who is not her family or close friend, and now I do it too.
It’s the random habits that you pick from people who were/are a part of your life that make the heartbreak worth it, I guess.
I’ve spent a big chunk of my life figuring out why it is so hard for me to keep friends around me, just for me to figure out that the people I’ve lost weren’t mine to start with. We had different perspectives and wants in life. But they were an important part of my life because if it weren’t for my childhood friends, I might have not taken the paths I took.
So, maybe outgrowing people isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It just makes you realise that you see things through a different lens and that you needed that person at that exact moment in your life. It’s a sign that we’re evolving and shifting, just as the people we once connected with are. Each friendship, regardless of its duration, has played a vital role in shaping who we are and guiding us along our path. It’s natural for people to drift apart as their lives and values change, but that doesn’t diminish the impact they’ve had. These connections, even if they were only meant for a specific chapter, helped us learn, grow, and navigate our journey.
I am only getting back into writing so please don’t expect something mind-blowing from me just yet, I am yet to find my writing pace but until I do please bear with the unstructured, chaotic, all-over-the-place newsletters. Ending it here, because I never really learnt how to conclude things.
This was a bonus newsletter, from now on you will get a newsletter from me every Friday.
Thank you for being here and reading yet another brain rot-letter.
Until next time,
kriti
(ps: i don’t believe in proof-reading, don’t mind the typos woops)
You don't need a proof reading
Our imperfections, those slight loses, they make us better, make us human, Right? 🥹
The more I read the more I relate and somehow it was so comforting to remember the people I once was close with and how much I learned from them.